Not Just Darkness
by Sebe
Summary: They took Stiles. They were unstoppable. The pack was losing. But like everything supernatural they'd encountered so far, they'd underestimated these kids. They'd underestimated Stiles and Scott and what they were capable of doing, becoming, for each other. Scott-Stiles Friendship. Some Sterek hints. Maybe spoilers for last week's episode, but not really?


Author's Note: Quick little thing wanted to put out before the episode tomorrow. Just some speculation on what's happening. The twins are in the pack. Derek's back. The parents all know what's happening. Those evil things grabbed Stiles and the pack is fighting to get him back.

Summary: They took Stiles. They were unstoppable. The pack was losing. But like everything supernatural they'd encountered so far, they'd underestimated these kids. They'd underestimated Stiles and Scott and what they were capable of doing, becoming, for each other.

Scott-Stiles Friendship. Some Sterek hints. Maybe spoilers for last week's episode, but not really?

**Not Just Darkness**

Scott slammed to the ground and didn't get up. He tried, coughing and moving on shaky, healing limbs, vision blurred. He tried to howl, to fire up his pack again, keep them fighting, but was kicked over before he could.

This couldn't be it. For him, for them. High schoolers fighting demons? Dying beside the people he loved and called friend and family? This couldn't be it. Isaac. Isaac was still shielding Allison with Kira, bleeding, but upright. More than most of them. Derek was staggering, but moving, the twins a bit worse off. Scott couldn't feel the humans, the original 'guardians' outside. He could only hope there really were only five of these things and they were all in here with them. That their parents and Lydia were alright. Stiles-

See? See, this couldn't be it. Because he still hadn't saved Stiles. He'd promised him. Screamed it at the top of his lungs when he'd first seen him after the hospital abduction, but hadn't been able to get to him. When the blank look refused to fade from achingly familiar amber eyes, when the figures had been flanking Stiles and the literal darkness had swirled, left behind nothing and Stiles had been gone.

Scott had never broken a promise to Stiles when it mattered and this _mattered_. It was everything.

But the demons still had him. Their 'conduit' or 'tether' or whatever other pretty word they wanted to use to dress it up that didn't matter. They all meant 'tool' they all meant 'sacrifice'. They were draining the life out of him and it was never more apparent than now.

Scott didn't even know if Stiles had heard or seen him since he'd first been taken. Every time since, he'd been in that same glossed over haze, quiet and unmoving. Most times bruised and bleeding. Like now.

Stiles was slumped against a support column, head bowed, blood dripping from his nose and mouth.

He'd never been this pale; even that summer they'd stayed inside and played video games three months straight. He'd never been this thin and worn; that same summer when Scott had to coax and trick his friend into moving, let alone eating again. Melissa had done the same with the Sheriff, who hadn't been in any shape to tend to Stiles himself. There had been yelling and crying, but never from Stiles.

They didn't talk about it. Didn't need to.

Scott couldn't even tell if he was breathing.

He'd _promised_.

"Sorry." Scott choked out, vision blurring. He'd never meant to lie. "Stiles...sorry..." Scott wanted to curl up like he was a child again, bow himself in over his failures. He heard Isaac and Allison call out for him and he tried to move despite everything.

Kicked, pressed down again and he couldn't. _MoveBreatheSee_. Black. Blood and black. Dark, dark, dark...

It was so fast that Scott would have to ask later if he had run or dissipated, moved like they did, but that pressure holding him down was lifted, smoked away, retreating. Replaced instead with an arm hovering an inch away from his skin, arched over his body defensively, familiar palm flat on the ground beside his head. He could hear the heartbeat through the warm side pressed against him, rabbit-quick and irregular, odd and normal, just like it had always been. Scott's breathing hitched.

"Stay down." Less words than breaths, formed of no energy and pure will. He was shaking so badly that no one looking in would think he should even be conscious let alone apparently broken of control and protecting. Except Scott. He knew. That's what Stiles did. Protected him; day one to right now. He didn't look at Scott, eyes ahead, breathed out again. "Still."

He was struggling. He was back. Scott stayed where he was.

Stiles protected, Scott trusted.

Whatever Stiles was doing, whatever he was to these things, it was enough to give them pause at this new development. Scott couldn't fully see Stiles from where he was, but he caught his eyes, locked onto their enemies and flickering over for only a moment, motioning to Derek in the so-subtle way that only Scott had managed to read before. The beta understood immediately and passed the command along to the others, standing, watching wide-eyed.

_'Move'. 'Close in'._ They did, circling in around the core two. None stood in front and only Derek stood at their side. It seemed to agitate the demons and they made lunges toward them, quickly aborted when the proximity to Stiles was too close.

After moments, the creatures moved almost cautiously, but fast, circling and twisting this way and that around them one and two at a time, cocking their heads eerily. They were scouting, Scott recalled a bit incredulously, like the raptors in Jurassic Park attacking the fences, trying to find a weakness. He and Stiles had snuck in and seen that movie opening weekend. They spent the next two days curled around their parents and each other, jumping at shadows.

Now the shadows were real. The pack bristled, tense, but Stiles breathed, stayed still, and they followed his lead.

Stiles' heartbeat was fluttering, breaths short and eyes threatening to close any moment. Scott reached across the floor, sliding through blood, likely a mix of all of theirs at this point, and curled his hand around Stiles' wrist, still planted beside him. _'Here. I'm here.' _

They waited, waited, until Scott was sure one of the short-fused twins would snap, but they didn't. Or at least, the demons snapped first. Tired of waiting, they all moved as one again.

"Scott!" Aiden bit out, panicked. Allison notched her arrow. Isaac roared. Kira growled. Derek moved closer in.

Stiles slammed his free hand to the ground and Isaac's claws tore through air, Allison's arrow embedded in a wall. They were gone. Just gone.

Scott twisted painfully over onto his back just in time to get a hand between Stiles' head and the concrete, grabbing around his stomach and trying to turn him over before more bruises could be added to his body. Derek had his other arm, helping Scott maneuver him.

"Temp...orary." It was a horrible sound from a dry, raw throat. It was beautiful. "...dead. Not..."

"Shh. Sh, sh." Allison. Bow slung around her back again and leaning over the boys. "Banished. We got it." She assured him and surprised Scott by putting her hand on Stiles' forehead gently. "We've got you."

That was what it took, it seemed, for Stiles to finally give in. He went completely boneless and Scott, still far less than fighting fit, was endlessly grateful for Derek's hold on his friend.

There were questions, oh so many questions, most probably without any good answer, but those were for later. Now was for Stiles.

As they limped out of the building, Lydia ran to them, huffed out the most relieved sound Scott had ever heard her make.

The Sheriff had his hands on his son immediately, shouldering Ethan out of the way and taking the other half of Stiles' weight. Derek was at his other side. Scott didn't think he'd stopped holding on to Stiles once.

The true alpha smiled from his position between Allison and Isaac at the look on his mother's face; like she didn't know whether to run to her son or Stiles first.

Without words on the matter, the group split itself in two. Everyone who needed immediate 'vet' attention went to Deaton; the rest, medical assistance needed or not, ended up at the hospital with the humans. With Stiles.

The wolves that had gone to the clinic led the vet through the ER's doors less than a half hour later. They weren't even healed yet, but they knew Stiles would probably need Deaton, so here he was. At the very least, they'd need any information they could get from him on what was going on and how to help.

They might not know exactly what those things had done to Stiles, but Scott was positive as he looked around at them; he and his pack, they were going to fix it.


End file.
